


Climb with me

by JaceRMontague



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 18:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10314401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaceRMontague/pseuds/JaceRMontague
Summary: Regina's favourite photo of her wife is the one of the blonde at the summit of a mountain.Emma suggests they climb it.





	

The photos littered the coffee table; there weren’t many from before the blonde turned eighteen, six or seven maybe. But there loads from when the blonde had turned eighteen and had gotten her first phone and had taken all the money she’d saved from her shitty barely minimum wage waitressing job to go travelling.

  
The photo that Regina loved most of her wife as a finally free teenager was a candid shot that one of the friends Emma had gone trekking with had taken. Emma was sitting at the peak of a mountain, a knee drawn under her chin, her other leg dangling off the mountain her foot disappearing in the clouds around the mountain, a smile on her face. She looked happy. Regina loved that photo. She wanted to frame it.

  
‘That’s my favourite photo, too.’ Emma whispered as she entered the room, not wanting to scare Regina. She wondered how long Regina had been sitting there looking at the photos; it was close to two in the morning now, the decaf coffee Emma had made for Regina before she had gone to bed was half drunk and stone cold beside the photographs on the coffee table.

  
‘How come you’re awake?’ Regina asked gently as Emma sat beside her and pulled her close.

  
‘You didn’t come up.’ Emma replied simply as she rested her head on Regina’s shoulder.

  
‘I was looking at these.’ Regina answered even though Emma hadn’t asked a question.

  
Emma took the photo from Regina’s hand and traced her finger along the edge of the mountain.

  
‘I felt so accomplished there. I’d literally climbed a mountain and so I could do anything. Climb back down and build a life for myself. So that’s what I did.’ Emma whispered.

  
Regina smiled.

  
‘How long did it take you to climb it?’

  
‘Like four, maybe five hours? I don’t really know. I didn’t time keep or anything. I got into a car, got out at the nearest mountain and climbed.’

  
‘I’d love to have done something like that when I was younger.’

  
‘We could do it now.’ Emma replied, serious.

  
‘What’d you mean we could do it now?’ Regina asked, pulling slightly away from Emma to face her a smile on her face as if Emma was joking.

  
‘Well, not this second but tomorrow or something. If you wanted to. I mean, you’re more than capable, you run half marathons with me every morning. And that mountain is only an hour and a half away from here.’

  
‘Emma. How serious are you being?’ Regina asked, genuinely unsure.

  
‘Like a solid 9.8 out of ten.’

  
‘And you think we can do this tomorrow?’

  
‘If you want to.’ Emma replied with a shrug. ‘It’s not like either of us have work tomorrow.’

  
‘Let’s do it.’ Regina decided.

  
Emma grinned before placing the photograph back on the coffee table and standing up, offering a hand to Regina and pulling the brunette to her feet. She wrapped her arms around her wife and held her close.

  
‘Bedtime’ she whispered as she kissed Regina’s cheek and then led the brunette through the expansive mansion and up the stairs to their room.

  
Emma released Regina’s hand and sat under the duvet on her side of the bed, watching as the toned brunette change into her pyjamas, she loved the way that the silk would drop with ease around Regina’s body before clinging in all the right places.  
Regina slid into the bed beside her wife and wrapped an arm around her, holding her close.

  
The two drifted to sleep almost immediately after they had got into bed.

They woke before the sun the next morning; habit Emma had developed years ago and Regina had fallen into more than a year ago when she had decided to take long-distance running seriously and had to fit runs in before work.  
Regina was already pulling on her running gear before Emma had woken up properly.

  
‘You sure you wanna run this morning if we’re climbing later?’ Emma asked, her voice heavy with sleep.

  
‘Yes, dear though not a full run. Maybe five miles.’ Regina answered as she leaned down and laced up her trainers.

  
‘Okay.’ Emma replied as she slid out of the bed and began pulling on her own running gear. She was ready in under five minutes.

  
The two headed out the door and began running side by side like they did every morning, though instead of running to music they conversed about their plan for the day.

  
‘So if we head back and leave within the hour, we get to the mountain for half ten, maybe eleven and then climb and see what happens from then?’ Emma recapped as they neared their home nearly half an hour after setting off.

  
‘Sounds good to me.’ Regina replied, keeping pace to pace with Emma which is something she was still proud off despite being able to do so for the better part of a year now.

  
An hour and twenty minutes later both Emma and Regina had showered and had their morning mugs of coffee and Emma’s bug had been loaded with everything they could possibly need on their adventure to the top of the mountain.

  
The duo sat in the car; Regina in the passenger seat and Emma in the drivers. The two smiling at the prospect of climbing a mountain together. Hell, they'd done everything else together over the last ten years.

  
Two hours later Emma was stood at the base of the mountain, Regina beside her looking as far up the mountain as she could before it disappeared into the clouds.

  
It wasn’t going to be a terribly hard climb, at least that was what Emma had told Regina. It was going to be fairly simple and was just a case of going up. Shouldn’t take more than five hours to get to the summit, Emma had said.  
Just looking at it made Regina feel a chill and she tucked the silk black scarf Emma had gotten her for her last birthday tighter into her jacket.

  
‘Ready?’ Emma asked.

  
At Regina’s nod Emma began to lead the way up the mountain.

  
After three hours of climbing upwards Regina was in love with the feeling of climbing, she completely understood why Emma had climbed so much as a teenager. It was freeing, the world was changing, she was literally above all her problems. As much as her lungs were beginning to ache from the constant movement and the altitude she was feeling good, really good.

  
They moved away from their path after Emma made a throw away comment about how her favourite place on this mountain wasn’t the summit but was a rock somewhere along the ridge they were currently standing on. Regina asked Emma to lead the way and so they climbed and sidestepped along the ridge until they reached the rock that Emma loved so much. From there the view was incredible; on a clear day the view from the summit was good but even on a cloudy day the view from this rock was spectacular; there was the contrast of city and town and sea and if she could have this view all the time she would.

  
Regina’s breath was taken away at the sight. It was truly as amazing as Emma had made it sound. She watched as the sea glimmered and sparkled beneath her and the way the sun caught the glass windows in the town. Her favourite thing about being at this rock, though, was the way that Emma looked. Her wife looked free, her emerald eyes shined.

  
Regina reached an arm out and took Emma’s hand within her own. Each loved how happy and free the other looked.

  
They stood there, hands intertwined just looking out at the view below them, for a long, long while. Neither saying anything, just happy with where they were.  
Nearly an hour later they reached the summit.

  
“This is incredible” Regina breathed out

  
“Isn’t it?” Emma replied with a smile.

  
The two looked out over the city and the sea for a long while.

  
“Now what?” Regina asked, smiling at the mischievous glint in Emma’s eyes and the smirk that tugged on the blondes lips.

  
“Race you to the bottom” Emma laughed as she span around and began jogging back to the car, Regina moving along side her the entire time. 


End file.
